Mundane Musings - Tending to my garden is a lesson in tending to myself
Lessons I've learned from my garden this week.
I have felt at peace with the space I am in. I want to make it home. So I decide to work towards that goal.
1. Small Bursts of Effort Lead to Results
The air in Florida is hot and sticky. 97 degrees with 83% humidity. I rise and put on a heavy layer of sunscreen, fill up my water bottle with ice water, stuff a hand towel in the band of my shorts, and head outside. This week I am reminded that projects do not need to be completed all at once to get done.
This week’s project is removing the St. Augustine sod from the side garden bed. A bed that is overgrown with ferns and grass and weeds. It is no easy feat in any weather let alone the heat wave we’re experiencing. So I chip away slowly. Removing 1-foot by 3-foot patches. Drenching myself in sweat each time. Rewarding myself with too many ice cold showers throughout the day.
I take pause between sessions of cutting the sod, loosening the roots, and the rhythmic rise and fall of the hoe to rehome a lone toad or observe the hummingbird that visits the flowers that tower above my head.
By the end of the week what started as an overgrown space is one that has regained order. A blank canvas for my dreams to come to life.
During this process, I am reminded that I do not need to burn myself out to achieve what I want. I am reminded that not every project can be completed in a day and that there is power in showing up and doing what I can every day.
2. Growth and Progress Take Time
I tend to be all or nothing. This mindset does not leave space for much wiggle room or compromise.
“If I cannot get this done all at once then I will not do it.” It sounds silly when you say it out loud. Rarely is growth made all at once.
A small sprout does not instantly produce fruit. The oak that sits tall with its wide canopy spread over my yard did not simply pop up like that one day. Instead, each spring it puts on an inch or two of growth from the tips of its canopy. Easy does it.
I often have to remind myself that Rome was not built in a day. That dreams are rarely achieved instantaneously. That growth and progress take time. That some trees take years to fruit. That, maybe, I am that tree in question.
3. Hard Work Feels Good
I wake up early in the morning and get to Lowes. The container garden bed needs far more mulch than I planned on. I got distracted by the guava plants sitting outside yesterday and had no room left in my cart, or car, for the extra bags.
I leave the store by 7:45 am with 8 more bags. No more plants. I head home and bring yet another load of mulch to the backyard. Bag by bag. Squat, lift, carry, drop, repeat.
It has been a long, hot week. My body is tired. Still I push on.
I have made slow progress this week. Progress nonetheless, but definitely slow. The humidity sits like a wet blanket over everything.
I cut open each bag of mulch and begin to spread it. I move each potted plant as I go ensuring an even layer is distributed over the whole area. Taking a break to look at my progress I am proud. This space once overgrown with weeds and filled with dog shit is now shiny and new. It is repurposed and beautiful. New life fills it. Pride fills me.
I sit down for a moment. I see the last 3’ x 5’ section of sod that needs removing. The pride leaves me. The sight of unfinished work makes me squirm. The idea of doing more work makes me squirm. I wrestle with the thought of which makes me want to crawl out of my skin more. I give myself 10 minutes.
“Just take 10 minutes and see if you get into it,” I tell myself.
30 minutes later the sod is removed. 50 minutes later the sod is bagged. 4 hours later several bags of sod are dragged to the curb for green waste pick up. 5 hours later I am eating dinner outside filled with pride again.
I am reminded that hard work feels good.
4. The Right Environment is Needed for Growth
I did the thing where I ordered plants in the dead of Summer again. If I were in Maine this would be no problem, but I am in Florida and things are entirely different here. Florida Summer’s are to Maine Winter’s when we talk about gardening. Nothing, except for native plants, wants to grow.
I ordered kiwi vines, a male and female, they come to me with bare roots wrapped in plastic. I transplant them on a 98-degree day. Inevitably the male dies. The papaya and passion fruit that came in the same order and were transplanted on the same day thrive. They come from a climate similar to this. The tropical weather does not get them down. They love it.
I wonder how many more Summers it will take for me to fully internalize the lesson it continues to teach me. I cannot expect growth in a hostile environment. Conditions need to be right.
Everything is an ecosystem. From the outside world, to my house, to my internal being. The environment needs to be correct in order for growth to happen. Otherwise, no matter how much energy I put into it, things may still collapse and die. You cannot force growth without improving the environment and system around it.
5. Little Miracles Are All Around Us if We Take Time to Notice Them
I move potted plants around the garden. It has just rained and my guava tipped over. During this process, I notice something I’ve never seen, fluted birds nest mushrooms. They have taken over a planter that is really just weeds at this point. Their tiny cups filled with small gooey balls and little raindrops. I am amazed at how prolific they are. Even more so, I am amazed they seemingly only exist in this planter.
By the next day, they are gone. All I have is a photo to remember them. They have done their job and moved on.
Little miracles are all around us if we take time to notice them.
I have been reminded of this as I do my morning pages every day. Most days, I don’t know what to write, so I sit outside with my pen and notebook and simply observe. I observe the way the light shines through the clouds. I observe the black and yellow butterfly that visits the fire bush and the monarch that dances around my last blooming snapdragon. I observe that one day the neighbor’s rose has grown over my fence, 4 rose heads opening up right under each other and that the next day it is gone again.
I have become acutely aware that to observe these fleeting moments is to take witness to small miracles. To be in the right place at the right time.
To tend to my garden is to tend to myself.
This tending is reminding me that I too, like my plants, deserve a nice place to grow in and the love and time to do so.
Until next time.
Xoxo,
Roo